


Paper, Dust and Ink

by JuweWright



Series: 30 for 30 [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bookstores, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 13:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: Hermione seeks refuge in a muggle bookstore after being chased by reporters through Diagon Alley. Turns out she is not the only one hiding there.





	Paper, Dust and Ink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missquirkybookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missquirkybookworm/gifts).



> 30 for 30 is a challenge I am doing for my upcoming 30th birthday.  
> People have been giving me prompts for stories and I am writing them.
> 
> This one was prompted by missquirkybookworm - Theo Hermione Post War Bookshop
> 
> It's a one-shot as of yet, but I am toying with the idea to turn it into a longer thing. Perhaps 3 chapters? What do you think?

Vultures! That’s what they were! Birds of prey going in for the kill with cameras and quick-quotes-quills and high pitched shrieking voices that demanded an explanation why she was walking the streets of London alone. Where was she going? What was she doing? Why wasn’t Ron with her? Did she know how Harry Potter was doing? Were they in contact? Was there any chance for Potter-Weasley-Offspring any time soon?

Hermione decided that the next time she needed new robes, she’d just have them owled to her flat. This was ridiculous. A witch-hunt in the literal and the metaphorical sense. She had to get out of here! Now! A group of school children walked up the street and she managed to duck behind them and vanish into a nook behind Weasley’s Wizard Weezes. She took a deep breath, focussed and turned on the spot. When the vultures descended upon their prey, they found an empty backstreet and a few confused rats that had been nibbling on some expired candy. 

Hermione’s apparition skills had never been bad, but they had been perfected since the war had ended and she was almost permanently chased by a throng of reporters who wanted to document her every move. Part of her had hoped it would get better without Ron, as they now would have to split up, one hoard following him while the other followed her, but she had obviously been mistaken. She understood completely why Harry and Ginny had emigrated to Canada after their marriage. They wouldn’t have had a single solitary moment for the rest of their lives, had they stayed in Britain.

She had landed behind a bunch of bushes in a small park. There was nobody around except for a homeless man in tattered jeans, a dark brown leather jacket that looked as if it had seen much better days, and a black woollen hat. He nodded when she walked past. They were acquainted in a way. She pretty often showed up out of nowhere behind the bushes and he didn’t ask any questions because her appearance meant he’d get a hot coffee and a fresh salmon and cream cheese bagel later.

The young witch made her way out of the park and into the street, heading for the one place in London where she felt totally safe. The tiny muggle book-shop was different from all the Waterstone’s around the town. It was run by a girl Hermione’s age and an elderly woman, grandmother and granddaughter, who had one fine day decided to share their passion of reading with the world. All of the books they sold had been read by one of them before finding the way onto their shelves. And once they had figured out your taste, they would know exactly what to suggest as your next read. They also served coffee, home made cake and bagels and as a customer, one could sit on one of the old plushy arm chairs surrounded by the bookshelves and just enjoy life for an hour. Sometimes the owner’s cat - a huge red and white tom - would sit on your lap as well. He reminded Hermione of Crookshanks. 

When she opened the door to the shop, a bell above her head jingled to announce the presence of a customer. Five seconds later, the old woman appeared from the storage room behind the counter, carrying a tray with freshly baked muffins. She was tiny and scrawny. Her white hair was curled around her narrow, wrinkly face and a pair of thick glasses made her eyes look huge. She wore a pink woollen sweater and a matching skirt and moved about almost noiselessly in her warm pink slippers. She was the antithesis to Dolores Umbridge and Hermione loved her for it.

“Oh hello, Sweety! Good to see you again” she said with a wide smile. “The usual?”

Hermione nodded and the elderly lady immediately headed to the coffee machine to prepare Hermione’s large cappuccino.

“Want something to eat as well, darling? You look a bit worn out.”

Hermione sighed and nodded.

“That would be lovely, Margaret. I’ll take one of those fantastic muffins and one of your salmon bagels.”

“You’re a creature of habit, aren’t you? Just like the young man. Have you met before? I don’t think you’ve ever been here at the same time, have you?”

It was only then Hermione realized that she was not the only customer. Somebody was sitting in the high backed armchair next to the sofa she usually sat on. He was tall, slender with the built of a long distance runner and he was staring at her with a mixture of disbelief and something that bordered on fear. Hermione’s head spun when she recognized him.

“Theo Nott” she said tonelessly, unable to process the fact that she had to be so unlucky as to meet a former Slytherin and Death Eater in her private sanctuary. 

“Granger” Theo responded with a lopsided smile. “Long time no see.”

What was he doing in muggle London? Why was he here? And why did Eliza seem so familiar with him? Wait, the old woman had said, he came here regularly? Merlin! How many book shops were there in London? And why did he have to come to this one, the one that belonged to her, that was her tiny holiday-place away from reality? 

The tomcat appeared from behind a row of shelves, rubbed against Hermione’s legs with a welcoming miow and jumped onto Theo’s lap, curling up into a cushion of hairy, warm, breathing, purring, happiness. Hermione stared and realized there were three options here: Option one: She could tell Eliza that she’d come back another time, pack up the coffee and the food and leave. 

Option two: She’d stay and pretend Theo wasn’t there, which was impractical because she could hardly be able to ignore a person sitting right next to her. 

Option three, she could pretend this was an okay situation, get through the bare minimum of small talk with the Slytherin and hope he’d leave soon.

She took a deep breath and decided to give option three a go. 

“Oh you know each other?” Eliza noted form behind the counter, setting down a steaming cup of cappuccino in front of Hermione before preparing a plate for the muffin and bagel.

  
Hermione shrugged.

“We are... “

“... old acquaintances” Theo suggested. “We went to the same school, but we were in different classes.”   
  


“Ah”, the old woman nodded. “Well then, this is the perfect opportunity for you to catch up and get to know each other a bit better. I never met two people whose taste in literature was quite so similar, so you will definitely find you have a lot to talk about.”

It turned out, she was right. After a very wobbly beginning - none of them was particularly good at small talk - the conversation turned to books they had enjoyed. It turned out that they both liked Shakespeare but found “Macbeth” and “Romeo and Juliet” were highly overrated. They also had read several muggle books about alchemy and found them to be badly veiled attempts of wizards to share their knowledge without unmasking the wizarding society. They also both had a knack for the classics, but differed greatly in their most cherished Charles Dickens novel.

“You can’t be serious!” Hermione exclaimed. “‘A Tale of Two Cities’? Why?”

Theo shrugged and sipped his coffee - he had ordered a second round for both of them a while ago.

“Because of Sydney Carton’s character. I - I always saw a bit of myself in him.”

Hermione sighed.

“Not really a close fit, Theo, don’t you think?”

“Admittedly, no. I still liked him as a character though.”

He patted the tomcat who had after some indecision decided to arrange itself on the armrest of the sofa between the two customers so they were both a convenient arm’s length away from stroking him. They had taken turns doing it and the cat looked utterly content.

“So what’s yours?”

“What’s my what?” 

“Favourite Dickens novel. I told you mine, you obviously don’t agree with me. So what’s yours?”

She grinned.

“Take a guess!”

Theo frowned.

“That man wrote way too many novels for me to guess. Spill, Granger!”

She shrugged and chuckled.

“Okay! It’s ‘Little Dorrit’”

He stared at her in disbelief.

“You’re kidding me!”   
  


“Nope. Not kidding. I know it’s not half as deep and meaningful as most of his other works, but it has some excellent humour. And it’s a good love story. Because it’s not a ‘knight in shining armour rescues poor girl and BAMM they are a couple’ story. It’s both of them rescuing each other. I like that concept: Two people being each other’s support, as equals.”

A tiny smile appeared on Theos face but he didn’t comment. Instead he leaned back in his armchair and grinned.

“You know that scene when Clennam visits his old love Flora and she’s turned into that stupid bint and he doesn’t know what hit him? Always reminds me of Draco and Pansy. I mean, as the reader, you are fully aware of the fact that Flora was probably always a stupid and annoying person and Clennam didn’t notice because she was beautiful and he was horny.”

“Classily put.”

“But true. He had the hots for her and so he didn’t notice she was just an idiot. Hormones were already working back in those days.”

Hermione giggled, then laughed heartily scaring the tomcat who jumped off the sofa with an unhappy meow.

Theo frowned.

“I didn’t expect that comment to warrant so much hilarity” he stated.

Hermione waved a hand in front of her face.

“Let’s just put it like this: Flora doesn’t necessarily have to be female.”

“Could you be speaking of one Ronald Weasley? I guess anyone could have told you he’s not the best match for you. Thinking back to his behaviour at the Yule Ball… What a douche!”

Hermione shook her head. 

“He’s not a bad person. He’s just not the person I want to spend my life with. He’d drive me nuts. By the way: Any word to the Daily Prophet about this and you’re dead, Theo.”

He held up his hands, then made a gesture that encompassed the whole book shop. He cast a Muffliato in the direction of the storage room in which Eliza had vanished again and was rummaging between cartons with new deliveries.

“You noticed where we both are, didn’t you? We’re both refugees here, running from the press. I mean, okay, they hunt you down, because you’re part of the Golden Trio and a heroine and a female role model and all that and they hunt me down because… because I did something terminally stupid when I thought it would perhaps make my father happy to see his son join the Death Eater squad.”

Hermione looked up with an interested look on her face. She had wondered before what had driven Theo to take the Mark. He and Draco had been the only ones in their year to take it and it had been pretty obvious that Draco had been bullied into it by Voldemort threatening his family. But Theo…

She didn’t really know much about him and the circumstances of his upbringing. She had always assumed that the Nott family was very similar to the Malfoy clan. Noble pure blood, massive castle-like house, lots of house-elves slaving away under terrible working conditions, no respect for Muggle borns, no respect for anyone but the other aristocratic bloodlines. But was that true?

Theo sighed.

“My father always thought I was weak. He always told me how much stronger Draco was. He was my best mate and still I hated him sometimes because my dad loved him more than me. Draco’s the better flyer, the better Quidditch player. He had better grades than me in anything but Potions. I… I took the Mark first, you know. I wanted to be the first one of us to have it. I wanted to prove that I was worthy: not to the Dark Lord, but to my own dad. And you know what happened? He laughed at me. I had gone through the process to get the bloody Mark and it hurt like hell. It’s almost like being crucio-ed for hours. And my dad laughed at me, because Voldemort had already decided that he’d give the job to Draco. ‘To prove himself’ as he put it. But my father saw it differently. He said that Voldemort had seen that I was unworthy to do something this important for him and that I would always be inferior to Draco Malfoy.”

He took a deep breath and Hermione noticed he had clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles stood out white under his skin. She hesitated for a second, then reached out, to put a hand on Theo’s shoulder. The young man tensed under her touch, then sagged covering his face with his hands.

“Family is everything in my circles, Hermione” he murmured. “We are brought up that way. I would have done everything to have my father be proud of me, to gain his respect. Well,” he let out a bitter laugh, “seems like ‘everything’ wasn’t quite enough to make that happen.”

Hermione didn’t know what to say to that. When she finally managed to open her mouth, her comment was neither witty nor wordy.

“Shit” she said.

“Yeah”, Theo conceded. “Shit.”

The Muffliato had worn off and Eliza had appeared from the storage room again. She smiled when she noticed that they still hadn’t left.

“We’re closing soon”, she said. “So…”

Hermione nodded and stood up. Theo mirrored her motion.

“Coffee’s on me” he said nonchalantly and - when he saw a deep frown appear on Hermione’s forehead - added “You can pay next time, Granger.”

“I’ll pay for the extra coffee and the bagle though” Hermione said with a nod to the old woman. 

Theo seemed confused when she took the cup and paper bag before heading out, but followed her anyway. They walked to the park and Hermione waved the homeless guy over to hand him his meal.

“I am sorry it took longer today” she said. 

The man smiled and sipped his coffee.

“Seems like you met a friend” he said. “That’s all right. I am happy to wait. You’re always alone and friends are important.”

Hermione smiled at him, then up at Theo who was shuffling his feet next to her.

“Yeah” she decided “I met a friend.”


End file.
